I do not celebrate christmas

HERE is an interesting posting from Alternet on the subject, written by a British humanist.
It is entitled ‘War on Christmas’ Nonsense is a War on Secularists

D.J. was interviewed by Derek Colanduno over at Skepticality for their Christmas episode on the topic of how skeptics and atheists may or may not participate in the holiday season.  While it appears that Skepticality was unable to run the interview, you can find the recording from our end below.  D.J. disagress with Tom Flynn on a number of points which some of you may find interesting.

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uploads/dj_grothe_skepticality.mp3

Silly me ... probably shoulda posted this response here first

***

Thanks for uploading that, Thomas.

That was a nice interview with DJ and I go along with much of what he said in the interview. I’ve challenged Flynn’s stance on christmas here before along with thanksgiving and so on and I feel his “anti-claus” persona does more harm than good. I “celebrate” christmas with my wife and daughter without any of the trappings of religion. We don’t go to christmas mass but we sure do love all the christmas carols. We feed the capitalist machine by giving and getting piles and piles of gifts and engage in various levels of gluttony as we put on the pounds while eating anything and everything in sight. Santa is still very real to my daughter and that’s OK with us.

My biggest issue with Flynn is that he has blanket categorized any atheists who “celebrate” christmas as “bad atheists” or people who “need their consciousness raised.” To me, that smacks of arrogance. Going in to work on a day where we are all encouraged to be a little nicer and use the time to reconnect with family and friends is just a little too self-righteous for me.

I agree with DJ and many others here who think it’s a far better idea to embrace the celebration and supplant it from within. We’ve managed to take the religious aspect out of Thanksgiving. It is just as easy to do it for christmas too. I and many of my “bad atheist” friends have done it without any issue.

My family has never really “celebrated” Christ per say, but we do exchange gifts, have a christmas tree, stockings, decorations, ect… on Christmas day. Our exchange, is not an act of celebrating Christ, it’s simply a tradition and just an excuse more then anything to party, have fun, exchange gifts, and see family. Of course the tradition comes from generations that actually really were celebrating christ, but for us, we just do it because it’s fun.

While I have expressed that I do like to celebrate with a secular ritual at this time of year, I think that Tom makes many valid points about the christian nature of christmas.  While I agree with his detractors that much of what many people practice under the name of christmas is not the least bit christian, I also agree with Tom that much about christmas is very christian.  And I think that it is naive for non-religious persons to ignore this.  The very word “christmas,” for example, refers to a “christ mass.”  And a “christ mass” is clearly something that non-christian persons would not be interested in being a part of.  Similarly, there are many morally repugnant christian fables that deserve no repeating around winter time.  I have many jewish friends who outright reject the celebration of christmas in support of their own hannukah.  Why should secularists be any more accommodating?  Are we really so accustomed to riding at the back of the bus?

So why not celebrate the winter solstice for what it actually is, and why not go all the way in taking the “christ” out of christmas?  While it may be true that the winter solstice was celebrated by many pagan peoples across history, it is actually the solstice that is unknowingly being celebrated by christians and jews under the false names of christmas and hannukah.  The solstice is not an “alternative” holiday to christmas.  Nor is it a pagan phenomenon.  It is an actual natural astronomical occurrence.  Just take a look outside your window at how dark it has gotten.  It is, quite simply, the shortest and darkest day of the year.  And, it is the real reason why people have celebrated christmas, hannukah, and a variety of pagan holidays over the centuries at this time of year.  Pagans, christians and jews alike may have noticed the winter solstice, but so especially ought naturalists.  Are we, who are naturalists, not persons in awe of nature?

I say keep all the good parts that you like.  Send out solstice cards.  Put up a tree with beautiful lights and decorate the house with holly and ivy and pine wreaths and pine cones.  Enjoy hot spiced wine, cider or egg nog and a delicious family dinner.  Enjoy good choral or brass music.  Visit the ballet.  Cozy up, away from the cold outside, and exchange gifts with loved ones.  Also, consider the celebration of midsummer in Scandinavian countries.  There are also many pagan practices associated with its traditions.  But beneath it all, isn’t it just a celebration for the longest day of the year?  I think that naturalists ought to have a big party then too.

Thanks for posting this here Thomas. We spent most of the day on Christmas Day re-wiring our studio here at Batpig Studios to get out a Christmas episode. I had interviewed about 12 big name Skeptics and thinkers over the 2 weeks before Christmas, and we were SUPPOSED to have all those in a big Christmas Eve episode. Then, our equipment and setup went all sideways…

What I *AM* going to do is package up all the ones we didn’t use and put them up for download on our website, and possibly just create another episode on our feed to get them out. Even though it is after the holiday, I think most of the answers and questions and commentary we received during those interviews should get out to everyone!

Derek C.

Thomas Donnelly - 27 December 2007 03:07 PM

D.J. was interviewed by Derek Colanduno over at Skepticality for their Christmas episode on the topic of how skeptics and atheists may or may not participate in the holiday season.  While it appears that Skepticality was unable to run the interview, you can find the recording from our end below.  D.J. disagress with Tom Flynn on a number of points which some of you may find interesting.

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uploads/dj_grothe_skepticality.mp3

Thomas Donnelly - 27 December 2007 03:07 PM

D.J. was interviewed by Derek Colanduno over at Skepticality for their Christmas episode on the topic of how skeptics and atheists may or may not participate in the holiday season.  While it appears that Skepticality was unable to run the interview, you can find the recording from our end below.  D.J. disagress with Tom Flynn on a number of points which some of you may find interesting.

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uploads/dj_grothe_skepticality.mp3

Thanks Thomas!

Five days of Kwanzaa left.  Happy Kwanzaa!

Are there any critical polls or estimates of the holiday’s popularity?  I watch church/state/religious news even more closely every holiday, and I’ve yet to see any objective analysis about it, just boosterish features.  I just checked Gallup, Zogby, Pew, Harris, and Snopes, and none have researched Kwanzaa except in the context of holiday shopping or Internet usage.  The more scholarly NORC site’s search isn’t working right now.

This article from the regional newspaper the Buffalo News says that Kwanzaa organizers estimate that “half of the black population in the Unites States” celebrates it.  That’s such an extreme claim that the paper appears to criticize it without even having to rebut it.

If no one has tackled this, is there any chance it could become a CFI project, say by commissioning a public opinion survey?  (It doesn’t look like CFI has conducted its own surveys in the past.)  If CFI could fill this unique data hole, it could be be the sort of rational-inquiry project intersecting with the holiday season just enough to bring CFI, and African Americans for Humanism, a little more into public awareness.  At the risk of being a bit of a holiday buzz-killer, as we freethinkers often are/do.

Here’s the article, excerpted:

The Kwanzaa quandary: Area blacks know about secular holiday created in 1966 to promote African heritage, but few take part in full seven-day observance

By Deidre Williams
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/532939.html

[...]

While the exact number is not known, Kwanzaa founders estimate that about 18 million African-Americans do celebrate the weeklong holiday. That would be about half the black population in the United States, according to census estimates.

Locally, about 700 people came to last year’s Kwanzaa celebrations, said Sabriyah Amin, chairwoman of the Buffalo Kwanzaa Committee. But estimating exactly how many of Buffalo’s 103,475 African-Americans celebrate it is difficult, she said.

“There are people who may celebrate in their homes who may not come out for the citywide celebration,” she said.

[...]

Created in 1966 by author, activist and former University of Southern California professor Maulana Karenga, the Pan- African cultural festival is celebrated each Dec. 26 through Jan. 1. The word Kwanzaa is Swahili, and the holiday is based on seven principles — unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

Each night of the celebration features lighting a candle that focuses on a different principle. Essentially, people are encouraged to incorporate the values into their daily lives.

[...]

At Greater Refuge Temple, nothing extra is done for Kwanzaa, a nonreligious African- American festival not intended to replace Christmas.

“We don’t celebrate it, per se,” said Bishop Robert L. Sanders Sr., church pastor.

“I don’t look negatively toward it. In my opinion, it’s not popular. And I’m speaking primarily within my congregation and the people we serve because it does not carry the weight that celebrating Christmas does,” he said.

His congregation has more than 1,000 members, predominantly African-Americans with families from the suburbs and inner city alike.

“I don’t discourage it or emphasize it. I respect the person who does,” Sanders said.

Amin said she was not surprised to hear many African- Americans here do not celebrate Kwanzaa. Perhaps, she suggested, they haven’t taken the time to research the cultural festival before discarding it.

If they did, they would find that Kwanzaa was intended to celebrate African culture and focuses on family and the community.

[...]

morgantj - 28 December 2007 09:22 AM

My family has never really “celebrated” Christ per say, but we do exchange gifts, have a christmas tree, stockings, decorations, ect… on Christmas day. Our exchange, is not an act of celebrating Christ, it’s simply a tradition and just an excuse more then anything to party, have fun, exchange gifts, and see family. Of course the tradition comes from generations that actually really were celebrating christ, but for us, we just do it because it’s fun.

I’m not at all sure it is true that the tradition comes from generations that actually were celebrating christ.

But the real point is it just doesn’t matter and you do it because it’s fun, or whatever other reason one might have.

I asked a Jewish man I know what he’d be doing over christmas, Would it be a proper christmas? He said yes! Turkey, presents, family, christmas tree and so on. It doesn’t matter in the slightest to him that he doesn’t believe in Jesus and I think that’s the best approach for atheists too.

Stephen

Do you think Kwanzaa is ever used as a replacement for the majoritarian Christmas and Hanukkah, the way humanists and atheists can use the solstice and HumanLight?

I have warmed to the secular Christmas over the years.  But I can’t get good-humored over Hanukkah, whose victory of Jewish religious fundamentalism against the Hellenized Jews and the Seleucid Greek society is repulsive to me when I see it through secular ethics.

A Humanistic Judaism site calls Hanukkah “a celebration of human courage. The flickering Hanukka lights are a reminder of the struggle, courage, and fragile triumphs of the Jewish people. . . . The story of the Maccabees is a story of human courage, integrity, and hope.”  It admits that “Judah Maccabee . . .  was a religious zealot who denied freedom of worship to those who opposed him,” but then adds that “[d]espite this, his example of fearlessness demonstrates ennobling bravery.”

Baby, out you go with the bathwater.

First of all, Derek, I LOVE the Skepticality Podcast!
As an American of African descent, I celebrate a very secular christmas, that has absolutely nothing to do with its religious origins. It’s a reason for family to gather and enjoy each others company, an opportunity for gluttony, and gift exchange. We have never celebrated Kwanzaa, and I know of perhaps one family that does, and they celebrate it instead of christmas, and celebrate it with a religious interpretation (go figure).

My family also celebrates easter, thanksgiving, and New Years day with family get together and gluttony. I look of it as a way to get my family together at least 4 times a year in a formal dinner, with all the fine linen, china and crystal etc to sit down and have a fabulous meal. The meals are described more as a equinox, harvest, solstice and new year meals, and attendance is expected. Along with dinners for birthdays, we have a set of days where the entire family will be together. It is a family tradition that was begun by my parents, remembered fondly, and hopefully carried forward by MY children.

Well…  My older son is a professed Tao Buddhist, so I honoured his day by giving him a Bodhi Day gift, even though I’m not sure that is the custom.  I gave him the Dalai Lama’s book called The Art of Happiness and my son was very estatic about it.  My younger son says he isn’t anything and makes his own beliefs.  I prefer Human Light Day, but I don’t know of anyone who celebrates it in this area, so we had a very secular holiday along with my older son’s Bodhi Day, this month, as we do every year.

Mriana - 29 December 2008 04:12 PM

Well…  My older son is a professed Tao Buddhist, ...

What is a Tao Buddhist? I know of Taoism and I know of Buddhism, but they are different religions. (There is some vague overlap around Zen/Ch’an Buddhism, but only in the vaguest way).

Yes, I realize this and I asked a Buddhist, who also teaches Buddhism at the local uni if that was possible.  He said it was and explained how.  I forgot the explaination, but basically the two can go together, he said.